Monday, February 23, 2015

SWAT Raids for Mundanes, Taxi Rides for the Elite

Summoned
from his slumber by the insistent pounding on his front door, Mark Casterline
opened his bedroom window to ask what was wanted. By way of reply a blinding
spotlight was trained on him. An instant later his front door was kicked in to
admit more than a dozen armed men, who dragged him naked from his bed.

“They
intended to kill me,” Casterline said during an interview in the kitchen of his
home outside of Ontario, Oregon. “I was sound
asleep when the SWAT team showed up and had no idea why they were in my house.
They came thundering in and I hear clicking noises as they pointed their guns
at me. They were going to take me out.”

The
3:00 AM raid by the Malheur
County Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team was carried out without a warrant
of any kind. Several years after the event, the shattered front door still bears the
impression of the jackboot that was used to kick it in. The rationale for deploying
a paramilitary team to Casterline's property was a claim made by an
antagonistic neighbor, identified
in a subsequent lawsuit as Phil Youngblood, that Casterline was either
“drunk or high,” and that he posed a threat to any officer who checked in on
him.

Apparently,
leaving him unmolested wasn’t an option, nor was conducting a conventional “welfare
check” if there was some legitimate concern over his condition.

A “welfare check” consists of a single officer, dressed in conventional attire,
politely knocking on the door and making a non-confrontational inquiry about
the resident’s well-being. In this case -- as in a subsequent raid conducted a
short distance away in Letha, Idaho – the “welfare check” mutated into a
military-style assault because of the target’s history with law enforcement.

Casterline
had a “history” with law enforcement. To be specific, he had been abused and
injured by police roughly twenty years earlier in a case of mistaken identity. He
was also known to be a gun owner. Thus the possibility that he harbored
lingering – and entirely understandable – resentment over his mistreatment was
deemed a potential threat to that most precious of all things, “officer safety.”

On
the evening before the raid, according to the lawsuit, Youngblood called the
police to report – falsely, as it turned out – that he had seen Casterline driving
while intoxicated. A Malheur County Sheriff’s Deputy found the truck in a ditch
on Casterline’s property, and reported that there was “nothing unusual” on the
scene.

Shortly
thereafter, Oregon State Trooper Ryan Moorehead conducted a follow-up visit
with Youngblood, who told them that he shouldn’t “approach him by himself.” As
the Trooper was assuring Youngblood “that I would request a backup officer … we
heard a loud gunshot,” Moorehead wrote in his official report. He also recorded
that at the time Casterline’s house was “obscured by vegetation, so we could
not see in combination with the dark.”

Moorehead
provided a conflicting account in a probable cause affidavit, claiming that “as
I approached [Casterline’s] home a single shot was fired and officers set up a
perimeter.” Moorehead characterized that gunshot as “an intimidating gesture.” In
a separate report, however, OSP Sergeant Mark Duncan acknowledged that “It is
unknown whether [Casterline] was shooting at police or not.”

Furthermore,
there wasn’t any evidence that Casterline had been shooting at anybody.

The
sound of gunfire was hardly a novelty in the neighborhood, since Youngblood
operated a private shooting reserve used by personnel at the Snake River
Correctional Institution, which is located a few miles away.

Troopers
Moorehead and Duncan were unable to confirm who fired the gunshot, in what
direction it was fired, or the intent of the person who fired it.

Rather than
addressing those matters, the officers simply ticked the required boxes on
their “Threat Matrix,” and the Special Response Team began planning an assault
on Casterline's home.

During
the next four hours, as the tactical team was assembled from officers in both
Ontario and neighboring Vale, no effort was made to obtain a search warrant.
Given that the team was responding to a supposed threat against law enforcement
officers, there is ample justification for Mark's belief that the stormtroopers
intended to kill him, rather than take him into custody. One of the raiders
commented that they had expected Mark to commit “suicide-by-cop,” and asked the
naked, terrified man if he “knew how close [he] came to being shot.”

It
should be recalled that Casterline’s only “threatening” action thus far was to
open a window and ask the officers what they wanted.

A
total of seventeen people – including Robert Norris, who at the time was the Malheur County District Attorney –
surged into Mark's home, compounding the home invasion with an illegal search. The
invaders seized four firearms and filed a variety of charges against the victim,
all of which were dismissed in a subsequent suppression hearing because the
search was patently illegal.

That
assessment was the sober product of Casterline’s long and thoroughly
disagreeable experience with the racket that has appropriated the title
“justice system.”

Mark
is a stocky 57-year-old man who suffers from chronic pain – which he
treats with medical cannabis -- and often walks with the assistance of a cane.
Some of his injuries reflect decades of work as a farmer and mechanic, or
mishaps such as a nearly fatal motorcycle wreck that occurred several years
ago.

Some of the wounds – such as a permanently damaged elbow, and a hernia
that often makes it difficult for him to sleep – are battlescars from decades
of unprovoked conflict with local police.

“For
some reason, the police here in Ontario thought I was a Hell's Angel or
something, and they keyed on me after I moved here about thirty-three years
ago,” Mark told me.

Shortly
after his arrival, Mark was enjoying a dinner date at a long-gone Ontario
nightclub called Moore's Alley when “two cops grabbed me from behind and ripped
me out of my chair,” he recalls. “They didn't tell me what was going on; they
just beat me up in front of my girlfriend and hauled me off to the jail in
Nyssa.”

Casterline’s
hernia was inflicted by either a club or a flashlight wielded by one of the
officers who attacked him. The assault was a product of mistaken identity – and
it resulted in no punishment, of course, because the assailants were protected
by “qualified immunity.” The charges were quickly dropped, but Mark – according
to his account -- became a preferred target for law enforcement harassment.

“They’ve
dragged me in more times than I care to remember,” Mark recalls. “I’m not a
criminal, but for some reason they decided to treat me like one.”

Eventually,
Malheur County paid Casterline a token amount to settle his lawsuit “with
prejudice.” Several of the deputies involved in the raid went on to distinguish
themselves in similar dubious ventures.

Deputy
Brad Williams, who was one of the first through the door in that raid, headed the
MCSO’s campaign against the 45th Parallel medical marijuana co-op,
which extracted hundreds of thousands of dollars in “forfeited” cash and
property – including a huge volume of confiscated marijuana for which no
adequate accounting has ever been provided.

Deputies
Brian Belnap and Casey Walker were also kitted out in paramilitary drag during
the raid on Mark Casterline’s house. They played an interesting role in a
recent incident that started out in similar fashion – but ended much
differently.

Hawley
was visibly drunk and emitted “an overwhelming odor of an alcoholic beverage,”
wrote Deputy Walker in
his report (which consistently referred to the subject by the familiar
first name “Matt,” rather than the formal “Mr. Hawley”). Behind the driver’s seat
of the car could be seen “a bottle of what appeared to be hard alcohol.” He was
“dishonest” and “not cooperative” when asked “about his drinking and … where he
began to drink.”

According
to Hawley, he was visiting the home of a long-time girlfriend. He had sent the
woman more than 30 text messages in the hours leading up to the incident.
Deputy Belnap explainedthat the woman “didn’t respond as she [was] trying to avoid him.” In fact, the
harried woman had “headed to Boise so she wouldn’t have to be around Matt.”

Rather
than arresting Hawley, or writing him a citation, the deputies called Sergeant
Dave Kesey, who “gave Matt a ride to his residence in Vale.”

The
deputies actually handled this matter appropriately – assuming that their
actions would represent a uniform approach to incidents of this kind. No one
had been injured, no property damage had been done, nobody filed a criminal
complaint, and Hawley’s potential threat was neutralized by having someone
drive him home.

How it's normally done: Deputy Walker "arrests" a student.

All
of those elements were present in the case of Mark Casterline – stipulating,
for the purposes of this discussion, that the report of his intoxicated driving
was accurate. One important difference is that Casterline was on his own
property – not that of someone he could have been accused of stalking.

Hawley’s
comrades in the school district did their respectable best to validate his insouciant
statement that his students would “never know” about his behavior. Hawley was
quietly placed on leave and temporarily replaced as superintendent by Dr.
Stephen Phillips. When the Argus Observer inquired about Hawley’s absence,
school board chairman insisted that he couldn’t comment on “an employee matter.”

Malheur
County Sheriff Brian Wolfe defended the decision not
to cite or arrest Hawley under circumstances that would certainly have led to
that result but for the identity of the subject.

“It is
not illegal to drink alcohol and drive,” insisted the sheriff. “It’s unlawful
to drive under the influence.'"

This is
a perfectly defensible distinction that would have been summarily rejected by
Sheriff Wolfe and his deputies if the drooling, stupefied motorist hadn’t been
one of the most celebrated members of Malheur County’s nomenklatura.

In
dealing with Mark Casterline – a man who allegedly got drunk on his own property -- the
MCSO staged a SWAT raid; in dealing with Matt Hawley – who was behaving as an obstreperous,
drunken stalker who had chased a woman from her property – the deputies offered
taxi service, and the sheriff became party to a cover-up. That’s how they roll
in Malheur County. But then again, that's how "they" roll anywhere the political class has a police force at its disposal.

6 comments:

Cops, like any group of people, vary in quality. Unfortunately, there are people that are willing to do the work for a small enough amount of money that the quality of individual tends to be lacking. Add to that the individuals that are drawn to such a job for the inherent power it gives them and things get much worse. Add in the "thin blue line" and it snowballs even worse.

All civilized societies need security but these services would be better provided by a private organization that has a profit motive. If elements of society were subject to being replaced when the customers aren't satisfied with their performance and would suffer for illegal actions everyone would be better served.

Of course our prohibition on plants or chemical substances and other truely victimless crimes is really at the heart of our current level of police problems. The only time someone should be punished for a crime in which a victim can't be named is when they were doing something that had true potential to have a victim (Driving While Impared, Neglegent Discharge Of A Firearm, etc.).

Let's see here, this hillbilly sheriff department has a list of victims that they have destroyed in their unlawful actions. Where is the OR attorney general or the DOJ? Being there is a complete and total blackout of avenues for such victims to turn to within the government system, is by no means a surprise. Look at whom the people within the government see as their enemies. Christians, Vets, Pro-life, people who support the United States of America's Constitution, people who oppose people from other countries breaking into their country unlawfully, people who support the Second Amendment, and my personal favorite, people who pay with cash to buy a cup of coffee. The bottom line is, the government employees of America are at war with the citizens. The Tea Party folks are deeply hated by government employees. Because the Tea Party folks want lower taxes and have smaller and accountable government. The government employees feel deeply threatened, because they know they can't make it in the private sector. They know there is a shopping cart, sleeping bag and a cold cardboard box in an alley waiting for them if they should ever lose that fat government job. That is our America today, destroyed by government employees. And it's going to get real bad because parasites will fight to the death than lose the hoast.

In the specific case of Malheur County, the sheriff (a childhood friend of mine, as it turns out) needs to be voted out following a long and detailed campaign focusing on the accumulating scandals in his office. Sheriffs are, at least in theory, accountable to an electorate, unlike police chiefs.

More generally, pending the abolition of government law enforcement (may God hasten that day), we have to do away with the pernicious doctrine of qualified immunity -- or at least start a very public fight over the subject.

If the DOJ or FBI had the integrity and wished to uphold justice they would audit all the police reports of the MCSO since Wolfe came into office. I believe they would find many, many "situations" such as the recent school Superintendent which are totally overlooked. If it is n't overlooked by the MCSO then the "right person" just might get helped out by the DA. Isn't the old saying..."Depends on who you know and who you blow.".....??